


you must know you were doing the right thing

by pieandsouffle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, MCU origin story, Major Illness, Origin Story, Uncle Ben's death, and all subsequent shit that follows, attempted humor, becoming spider-man, coarse language, other characters to be added - Freeform, sick!Peter, the spider-bite, yes lads because we havent seen enough incarnations of ben die already!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 20:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15150839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pieandsouffle/pseuds/pieandsouffle
Summary: Steve Rogers heroically volunteered for an experiment, gained awesome powers, and started beating up Nazis.Tony Stark fearlessly engineered his suit to escape terrorists and brought back peaceful innovation.Peter Parker had approximately five shitty, shitty days, and finds himself with powers and a dead loved one at the end of them.





	you must know you were doing the right thing

Peter is about as friendly with pain as he is with leprechauns, dinosaurs and blue-ringed octopi.

 _Unlike_ leprechauns, dinosaurs, and blue-ringed octopi however, Peter does, in fact, have the misfortune of being _acquainted_ with pain. His luck hasn’t been so poor lately as to warrant unwanted visits from shitty lettuce-coloured goblins, humongous carnivorous lizards and eight-legged death machines —

Well. Actually.

None of that is as true as he’d like.

So. While Peter would not go so far as to say he was on speaking terms with pain, goblins, lizards and/or multi-legged demons, they found it relatively easy to crawl, entirely unsolicited, into his life.

“ _Ow!_ ”

Or, to put it more accurately: crawl up the leg of his jeans, up the back of his shirt, and jam their horrible little fangs into the back of his neck.

But there is yet another issue with pain; it can sometimes be immensely easy to misattribute the source to something unrelated. In this case, the blame being incorrectly assigned to one Flash Thompson, situated directly behind Peter and appropriately armed with pencil.

The pain vanishes as quickly as it arrives, but the transition from burning agony to an abundance of nothing isn’t enough to stop Peter slapping a hand to the back of his neck and making a half-aborted attempt to turn around and see what the hell that was. It’s desperately unfortunate that the momentary stab of heat and pain makes him forget the presence of his pencil-case and notebook wedged under his right arm. The arm that, tragically, is attached to the hand that just slapped the back of his neck.

It’s even more unfortunate that everyone had chosen this moment to quiet down to listen to a presentation from a particularly stiff-lipped looking scientist.

Peter’s pencil, pen, spare pencil, broken sharpener, eraser and extra pens all manage to find the hole in his pencil case and hurl themselves to the floor in a spite-induced act of freedom. They strike the ground with an excruciatingly loud noise and _God,_ Peter wishes Flash had bothered to put a little more effort into the pencil stabbing and just fucking killed him on the spot so he wouldn’t have to deal with nineteen pairs of eyes turning and looking at him like _that_. The pencils don’t even have the consideration to land at the same time; oh no. One _single_ distracting noise isn’t enough for Peter Parker. They all land at different times with equally loud tinkling _thwacks_ and then, to add the final layers of shit-coloured icing to the crap cake of Peter’s humiliation, skitter across the floor so loudly and distinctly so as to be impossible to ignore.

Doctor Connors stops his introduction to look at Peter. All the students standing before Peter do exorcist neck twists to affix him with glares.

For _fuck’s_ sake, why didn’t Flash just kill him? Murder him on the spot? An entire pencil jammed between his cervical vertebrae would be _nothing_ compared to this. Peter shrivels down into his shoes and hopes furtively that somebody, _somebody_ — probably Decathlon Michelle, if he’s honest — will take pity and finish the job.

“Sorry,” he manages.

The students turn back to the front, apparently satisfied with the explanation that Penis Parker was the source of the disruption. It’s a reasonable explanation. Every person in New York City knows to expect sheer, unadulterated clumsiness from Peter Parker. Doctor Connors, however, finds it necessary to subject Peter to a few more humiliating seconds of narrowed-eye eye-contact. There’s an indecipherable expression on his face. The kind of expression that could mean anything from _that’s fine, kid_ all the way up to _I will personally sabotage every college prospect you have_ and —

And Doctors Connors returns to his presentation like nothing happened and Peter didn’t lose eight years off his projected lifespan. Peter heaves out a sigh of relief and ducks to collect his pencils.

It’s times like these Peter could use another friend. Ned’s usually there to soothe the mortification, and to complain with about what a dickhead Flash is, but not today. Today Ned, like approximately twenty percent of the rest of Midtown Tech, is afflicted with the stomach bug that rears its head and terrorises schools after the Christmas holidays.

But Peter doesn’t have any other friends like Ned. Sure, there are people he’s friendly _with,_ but —

Well. Flash isn’t entirely wrong when he says Peter has no friends. Though a more apt way of putting it would be _Parker has no friends except for Leeds._

Peter tries to block out Flash’s sniggering behind him and scoops his pencils back into the battered Stark Expo pencil case, neck throbbing, wishing he was brave enough to turn around and tell Flash pleasantly, cordially, to go and thoroughly fuck himself with the stick shift of his stupid fancy car.

One small hitch: he’s Peter Parker, and the English language does not physically possess enough words to fully explain exactly how much he Cannot Do That. So instead he rubs his neck and moves his attention to Doctor Connors.

“My department,” Doctor Connors says, apparently blind to Peter’s graceless scrabbling on the floor, “focuses primarily on the more radical applications of biological science. Namely, cross-species genetics. Creatures from all areas of the animal kingdom possess unique abilities that (with the help of rigorous research and experimentation, of course) could end up benefitting humans in ways never before conceived of outside of science fiction. Lizards, for example, are capable of regrowing their tails. If this mechanism could be replicated with animals from the mammalian — ”

The speech is sure to continue for another fifteen minutes at least, and promises to be one of the most interesting things Peter’s heard all week. It’s not that May and Ben are _boring_ , no way. In fact Peter can’t wait to get home to hear what Lauren Tweedy the Asshat did at Ben’s work today, and if that gang member in one of the wards at the hospital May works at is still causing trouble.

 _Intellectually stimulating._ That’s the phrase he’s looking for.

He doesn’t find the phrase. In fact, he doesn’t even hear the rest of the speech. He catches the first few words about a successful regeneration experiment performed at Oscorp, but is distracted very quickly by something hot pressing against his skin.

It turns out to be air, but he’d’ve never guessed from the pain. A spoon heated to white-hot with a blow torch would surely provide less pain. And be less _heavy._ The air weighs down on him, dragging down his shoulders, and his knees buckle.

The back of his neck starts hurting again. Worse, this time.

Words that sound something like ‘the spider experiment’ drift past his ears, but are overshadowed. He’s never considered himself the kind of guy very aware of his surroundings but _oh boy_ , is he now. The room is _so hot_ , and the air is _so heavy,_ and his fingers — his fingers are numb! And his toes! And mother _fuck,_ what is that drumming?

He flexes his hands, a rising panic filling him, and orders himself to stay calm. It’s a very sensible thing to suggest, but regrettably late. He passed calm eight blocks, a taxi ride, and a long stint on a Greyhound bus ago. The drumming in his ears grows only louder and faster.

He thinks it might be his heart.

Do hearts do that? Just beat louder and louder and then _explode_ or something? Is that normal? Is —

Something touches his shoulder and he flinches violently.

“Hey whoa whoa whoa whoa there dude,” Esther from robotics labs says, raising her hands up in surrender. “We’re going to the next lab.”

He blinks a few times. The lab does seem to be emptier than before. Students file out after a white-coated figure in a smeary line. He fumbles for his glasses, wipes them on his shirt. But the haze over his vision doesn’t wipe away with the dirt.

“Peter?” Esther asks. Her voice sounds like she’s shouting at him from inside a car, while he’s in a different car, and while both are submerged underwater.

“What?”

“Are you good?”

“Yeah,” he lies immediately.

He doesn’t know why he doesn’t just say _I feel shitty, thanks for asking_. But he doesn’t correct himself either.

“If you say so,” Esther replies, sounding unconvinced, and moves to follow the rest of the students. Peter pauses, hauls in a few deep breaths, and trails after her.

The effort it takes to get to the next lab is incredible. He’s never been so sure that walking for fifteen seconds would kill him, but there it is. He somehow, miraculously, makes it, and tries to assure himself the world is supposed to sway like that.

An elbow jabs him in the shoulder, and as he looks towards the elbow’s owner he realises he’s bent over double, nose almost touching his knees. This is surprising in itself. He’s not flexible enough to properly stretch his arm, let alone introduce his nose to his knees.

“Sorry?” he mumbles to the elbow. The figure moves closer and resolves itself into decathlon Michelle.

“I said,” she repeats, voice cutting into the his brain like a lightsabre through butter, “are you feeling okay?”

“Uh — ”

“I’ll take that as a no. Where’s your other half?”

“My other — ?”

“Ugh, he’s sick, right? And your stupid ass got it too. ‘Sharing is _not_ caring’ is not a statement applicable only to STDs, Parker.”

Peter opens his mouth to weakly protest, but Michelle grabs his elbow in a tight grip and drags him away.

He lets her.

**Author's Note:**

> hey!! I've been desperate to write some Homecoming fic since the movie first came out but had _no_ inspiration whatsoever. This'll probably only be a few chapters, encompassing the period from when Peter first gets the bite to when he becomes Spider-Man.
> 
> Reviews are like that noise a cat makes when you pat them and startle them!


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